Heroic progression and a potential tank swap

Ok, so let me start off by saying I do understand that you can push heroic content with w/e tank setup you want/ is more fun to play. I've just been considering if a switch might provide a little more utility.

Dps
Lock
Hunter
Enhance
Ret
Mage (have to recruit for this spot and trying to fill with spriest)
Balance Druid

Healers
Monk
Priest
*as a side note, both our balance druid and ret paladin are backup healers and pal a backup tank as well*

So now that you know the setup, here's the question. Do you guys think that it would be beneficial for us tanks to swap to brewmaster/prot paladin? Once again, I completely understand that it's doable with anything, but it seems that we would provide a little better raid healing/utility, while still maintaining good damage. I'm definitely open to any discussion/ input and I'll say that I enjoy tanking on any class, so there's not really an issue of "play what you have the most fun on." I just want to see if we can make minor improvements here and there that may help progression in the long run.

I think if anything you would want to swap your guardian druid out for a Prot Paladin and keep your DK tanking.

Just the manner in which blood DKs work makes them very desirable for most of the fights this tier. We have a guardian druid and blood dk as our tanks (9/16h) and I find that, as a healer, the blood DK requires less babysitting most of the time. Pretty much the only fight where blood is not desirable is gara'jal but that is made trivial by current gear levels.

IMO BrM Monk has a bit of a high skill cap (even with the changes to the rotation) and they tend to get crushed even at decent levels of gear.

You also have to weigh the fact that MW heals very nicely alongside Disc in a 2-heal set up.

Prot Paladin have also turned out to be quite phenomenal this tier. The amount of healing and damage they do at high levels of vengeance is astounding.

Blood DKs work very well for tanking, I wouldn't switch him out. My guild has the blessing of an incredible Brewmaster Monk, he makes their tanking seem overpowered with how much damage and utility he can put out.

I would swap the Guardian Druid if anything, they are the "worst" (all the specs are viable in raid) tank at the moment. Paladins also provide tons of utility with Hands and such, it's really up to you what you want to swap with your Druid.

As a Prot Pal, I wholeheartedly agree with the above. My tank partner in this tier was a blood DK, and it was a great combo. He since had to quit, and we've had his spot filled with a BrM as 2nd tank (and another BrM for 3rd tank fights, as we run 25m).

Our monks are both great players, and both tank rerolls from druid, warrior respectively, but they both seem to get shit-stomped on things like Sha thrash, BladeLord OA's, and even still on Will.

Meanwhile, as prot I can easily top healing and damage on fights like stone guard, wind lord, etc while being far more stable while doing so. Add to that the paladin utility with sac/LoH for off-tanks and tank swaps, Light's Hammer as a melee raid cooldown (heals like a beast with high veng), minor raid heals via battle healer, HoP/HoSalv and Devo aura and you've got an amazing tank class.

I will say that our BrM's own me on AOE threat (dizzying haze is OP!) and tend to do as much or more dmg than I while at the same vengeance levels. This is VERY pronounced on heroic Garalon (not sure why, but protpal dmg is abysmal on that fight ) but by and large it is about even for the rest of the tier.

Another vote for Blood DK/ProtPal. (8/16H FWIW)

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Our monks are both great players, and both tank rerolls from druid, warrior respectively, but they both seem to get shit-stomped on things like Sha thrash, BladeLord OA's, and even still on Will.

I'm not really sure how this is the case and point more to possible improvements to play. For Sha Thrash if you are reasonably geared you should have 80-85% avoidance rolling for 90% of Thrash's with the rest filled by other CD's. For soaking OA you should have Dampen Harm (50% damage reduction) or Fort Brew (25% reduction and +10% max health) and then you "block" an additional 46%+ through Stagger which he should be clearing the instant after it hits. Will you should be coming out of the 'dance' with 20+ seconds of 80%+ avoidance and still have a native 50-60% avoidance and 46%+ block while that is down plus the CD's mentioned.

AoE is through Keg Smash and Spinning Crane Kick spam, Dizzying Haze is just a no damage AoE ranged pull. But yeah holding threat vs a BrM is almost impossible by any other class (DK's can give me a run for it but they still always lose). Here is my thoughts on each:

DK: Very solid tanks this tier and a lot of neat tools (I miss you AMS) though they do suck bad for H Gara'jal it's still doable.
Pally: Blizz tank lovechild they will always be good and have plenty of utility though damage is low.
BrM: High single target and very high AoE DPS while still maintaning full mitigation levels. Only real raid utility is Ox statue heals to raid and L30 talents. Don't pick unless you can expect a high level of skilled play.
Druid: As said at the bottom of the tanking barrel but I still take the player over the class in most cases.

If you do pick BrM you'll probably want to swap out the Druid for sure as they will be sharing gear and weapons so make a terrible loot combo (also weapons with Enhance Shmn).

The four elements, like man alone, are weak. But together they form the strong fifth element: Boron.

traditionally, 1 leather tank and 1 plate tank (preferably a block tank) was always a safe choice and usually works best for progression as it covers most tanking situations and splits up tanking loot nicely.

The best overall tanking combo in 10man in T14 IMHO is paladin+druid. Please don't be fooled by people saying druids are at the bottom of the food chain right now. Most people just don't know what they're capable of. A druid gemmed/reforged fully to crit/haste with Heart of the Wild will do amazing dps (both as cat and bear) which will help progression more than anything else. DPS during lust and prepot should be >200k. He also brings stampeding roar or a Tranq if you really need it (with HotW).
Prot Paladin has great mechanics right now. They are the tanks with the smoothest damage income (due to their mastery providing a flat physical damage reduce around 50% plus being block tanks) plus they have lots of healing support. During progression your paladin can do 20-40k hps per fight, making your healers job a lot easier. With Bubble, LoH and the various other sources of self-healing, a capable Prot Paladin is almost unkillable. More so than a DK even. BoP has also been very useful many times during T14 (especially Zorlok and Grand Empress HC) and will continue being valuable in future tiers.
Both Paladin and Druid also have plenty and very strong tank-swap cooldowns.

P.S.: This is from a hardcore-progression PoV and from someone who actually has had all tanking classes at max level during the last two expansions. People will always tell you what they know and not to belittle anyone in this thread here but most people simply are not in a place to judge all tanking classes fairly.

Last edited by zora; 2013-01-05 at 11:24 AM.

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